


legacy. what is a legacy?

by Kriseis



Series: Ashes in the Sky - shorts [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, King Alistair and Queen Cousland, POV Child, Post-Canon, alistair/cousland kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21753436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kriseis/pseuds/Kriseis
Summary: Duncan is ten years old when he understands that he will never get to bury his parents.(Queen Elissa brings her children to see their grandparents' graves, and her ten-year-old realizes something: Grey Wardens do not receive burials.)
Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland (Dragon Age) (Implied)
Series: Ashes in the Sky - shorts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567864
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	legacy. what is a legacy?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FalabaWitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalabaWitch/gifts).



> Duncan is ten, Ellie is seven.
> 
> There's a whole detailed DA next gen where these two came from, I really hope you like them!

Duncan is ten years old when he understands that he will never get to bury his parents.

Mother has brought he and Ellie to Highever to visit their uncle and cousins, and in the flowering garden behind the castle she shows them four graves. They’re terribly simple, not at all appropriate for a teyrn and his family, marked only by flat stones set into the ground with names carved into them.

Beside him, his little sister gasps and drops to her knees to brush away at the dirt partially obscuring one of the names. _ELEANOR_ , it reads, and the girl twists around to look back at their mother questioningly. “But that’s _my_ name,” Ellie declares, a bit petulantly.

The queen kneels to join her daughter, reverent fingers ghosting over the stone. “Yes, little bird, of course it is,” she says, voice very quiet. “But before it was yours, it was my mother’s.”

Duncan knew this, of course. He’s the crown prince of Ferelden, he knows his lineage, knows of the horrible thing that happened to his mother’s family. Ellie doesn’t, though. Duncan sought this knowledge out, persistently asked to hear more about his parents’ families until they finally had to explain the whole truth. But when Ellie asks their parents for stories, she wants to hear fairy tales, with heroes and villains and _always_ a happy ending.

Mother pulls Ellie to her feet and leads her a step away, towards the next stone. “And this one - Bryce, see? - was my father’s. And here’s your uncle’s first wife, Oriana, and your cousin Oren. This is where they’re buried. I wanted... I wanted you to see them.” Duncan’s sure there’s something she isn’t saying, but he knows his mother well enough to trust that if she’s holding back, it’s for a good reason.

Still, something in him has to know.

“Hey, Ellie, I bet Uncle Fergus will give you some more candy if you ask him.” Mother shoots him a sharp look, but she doesn’t object as Ellie shoots off, a new mission in her head and the graves pushes aside. Her footsteps fade, and Duncan is left with their mother.

She doesn’t speak for long enough that Duncan grows impatient. “They’re awfully simple, aren’t they?” he tries. “For the family of a teyrn, I mean.”

He almost regrets asking when his mother closes her eyes in that way that means she’s holding in tears. “They were buried on the orders of Rendon Howe after he murdered them,” she says in a voice that might sound steady to someone who doesn’t know her the way her son does. “The only reason we even know which is which is that Oren...” -Her voice breaks on the name. “Oren was friends with a servant boy who begged his parents to mark the graves. They carved names into wood and put them out after dark. After... after the war and the Blight, when Fergus and I came home, they were already barely legible. We didn’t want to disturb them, so we just had headstones made and planted this garden.”

“It’s beautiful,” Duncan offers, unsure of what else to say.

That makes Mother open her eyes at last. She smiles faintly at the pink roses that decorate Eleanor Cousland’s grave. “Yes,” she says. “It is. It was... important to us, to have something to remember them by, something that wouldn’t go away. To know where they are, and that it’s peaceful, and, yes, beautiful.”

Suddenly, horribly, Duncan understands something.

Those stones with names mark the final resting places of family he never knew. It’s a way to remember them. _“To know where they are,”_ Mother said?

One day the Calling will come, and his parents, Grey Wardens both, will die in the Deep Roads on the blades of darkspawn.

He and Ellie will have nothing to bury.

“No, darling, no,” he hears Mother say, and that’s when he realizes he’s crying. She pulls him into a tight hug, rocks him gently, and when he’s calmed down some, she begins to speak again.

“Duncan, listen to me carefully. It’s not the same at all. My parents - they were cut down in their prime, still healthy and strong and with years ahead of them. They never had the chance to build their legacy, to decide what they wanted it to even be, and so this? This is all Fergus and I have left. But when the Calling comes for your father and I, we will walk to our end with our eyes open, knowing what we’re leaving behind. And that’s you, Duncan. You and your sister are our legacy, and that’s a million times better than some stones in the ground.”

Duncan has stopped crying, but he’s frowning hard. “But Mother,” he asks, “aren’t you their legacy, then?”

She spares one last look for the graves before starting to lead him back to the castle. “Yes,” she says quietly. “Yes, sweetheart, I suppose I am.”

But she isn’t smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been years since I've posted, well, anything, so I hope this was nice! The main work for these characters (and company), "Ashes in the Sky," is in the works. More shorts may be posted before that to introduce people to the various characters.


End file.
